Tunable Photoemission from an Excitonic Antitrap

We study the influence of lithographically defined, electrostatic trap configurations on the photon emission from dipolar excitons in coupled quantum wells. The emission is surprisingly enhanced for an excitonic antitrap compared to a trap configuration, an effect more pronounced for a trap with smaller diameter. We explain the observations by the interplay between the exciton formation process, the lateral charge-carrier dynamics, and the dipole–dipole interactions between the excitons. Exploiting this interplay allows us to efficiently tune the excitonic emission energy with very small intensity variation.